NEW YORK: There’s a reason baseball-laden drag bunt is one of the rarest plays in baseball. It is difficult to execute and requires a precisely placed ball. An inch in the wrong direction and a forced deviation are inevitable.
For a bag full of bases to succeed, it has to look like the one set by Jeff McNeil on Friday in the third inning of the Mets ’10-3 victory over the Yankees. With the explosion still in a one-run game at the time, McNeil surprised the defense with a great jump drag on the right side of the field. It was hit too fast for the pitcher to launch it, but too little for the second or first base to successfully load it. When the ball landed on Anthony Rizzo’s glove, Michael Conforto had already scored without leaving his feet.
As for the odds of winning, the bunt was a footnote. It didn’t offer the same kind of execution as Javier Báez’s two RBI hits, James McCann’s double, or Francisco Lindor’s homer on the opposite field. But in front of the third-largest crowd of the season at Citi Field, it represented the kind of creativity the Mets often lacked, and which they will have to continue to devise if they want to make an eleven-hour National League Qualifying race.
“He kept the concentration going,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said of McNeil. “It’s not a game you usually have, but if you feel it and you have a good read on defense and you have the right pitcher and you know you can do it, anyway. This time it worked. “
Base-laden success was only the second in Mets history and the first by a position player; Bill Pulsipher had the other on September 6, 1995. He was also only the third single with the bases loaded and with no exits in the last 30 years of Major League Baseball, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
After a run to the third, the Mets concentrated on a hit and stepped on three consecutive walks from Jordan Montgomery, the third of them forcing the long run of play. The forward throw later scored on an error, bringing McNeil to the plate with the bases loaded.
After McNeil’s aim, the Mets scored twice more that inning before facing late to turn the game into a laugh. His own starter, Tylor Megill, hit a maximum of 10 hitters in the race to seven two-run ball innings.
“The energy definitely felt different,” Megill said.
Credit to McNeil at least for that. Statistically, one of the Mets ’most disappointing players this summer, McNeil came into the night with just 0.243 with a .313 base percentage, nothing close to what he contributed to during his first three major league seasons, in which he annually beat well over .300. Injuries have affected McNeil and resulted in a loss of playing time. And, like many Mets batters, he has struggled to get out of it, hitting just .172 in September, coming in on Friday.
So why not create something?
As McNeil approached the plate with the bases loaded, the opposing third base was close to the edge of the grass, but the right side of the field was playing. It was enough for McNeil to consider a wrapper, in the same way he did it more often to minors.
“He took me back when Jeff had less weight on him, he couldn’t hit the ball off the park with an A ball,” said Rojas, who at the time was also McNeil’s manager. “Bunt with two strikes, bunt in situations like this. So unexpected. That was neither a game nor anything. It was just him. … You don’t see it in the game.”
For a Mets offense that has been ranked at the bottom of the Majors in races per game throughout the season, it was, as Báez said, about “being simple” and working to “move the stick to the next type.” . And while McNeil’s sweep helped lead the Mets to nothing more than a singular victory, he was an example of the exact kind of spark they need.
“Every win counts here,” Lindor said. “Every victory is huge when it’s September. We have to go out there day after day and give our best. Whatever it takes to play in that cold weather in October. Yes, every victory is important.